Robert Raymond John FISHER (b.1950)

Robert Fisher paints Australian landscapes in a very personal way. The outback, particularly Central Australia, inspires powerful paintings, their poetic imagery revealing his passionate response to the sense of space and richness of place.

His works included Uluru, the Olgas and Lake Eyre, Fisher flying over the great salt lake by day and by night, researching impressions to depict in works for a 2003 New York show. The paintings were vibrant depictions of the lake, violent rain storms, and moon-lit nightscapes.

But his masterwork so far is the series As The Crow Flies, recently on display in London. He flew around areas including Broken Hill, MountIsa, LeighCreek and Birdsville to magically capture the “many moods of the outback.”

Despite the bush fascination, Robert Fisher was born and raised in the northern Melbourne working class suburb of Reservoir. But a trip as a 16-year-old on the Ghan changed all that when floods stopped the train at WilliamCreek. The memories remained, and as his painting career unfolded he vowed to return and capture them.

As well as a studio in Melbourne, he also has one in William Creek, in the building of Wrightsair, the aircraft and tourist operation run by local identity Trevor Wright, and which, during the last eight years, has flown Fisher across the outback for his research.

A Fisher painting is displayed on the ceiling of the local pub and he is known as “the Painter Man of William Creek”.

He has also painted the You Yangs and a remarkable series, Walls and Footpaths of Melbourne.

“I think I painted around 26 canvases in Walls and Footpaths alone,” Robert says. “I can paint in a frenzy sometimes, in a trance-like state.”